Okay, this may be too late to mention this, but given PayPal charges, how about offering the ability to get multiple keys with one purchase?

The reason, in case you're wondering, is so I can give goo to my friends (one of whom suggested I just give him my copy. cheeky sod), buying a few copies at once.

This could be protected by an existing licence key, perhaps?

I reckon if I buy them a copy each for ~£2 that's about the price of a (student) pint, and as they wouldn't have bought it otherwise 2D would make some money at least.

But, if I put in $4 as the exchange, I may well incur lots of charges, and Ron or Kyle may too.

Just a thought. Don't want to stop you from capturing the mouse for multi-monitor users... ;)

R

Then you'd have a situation of people hoarding keys and being greedy so I actually think this is a bad idea. I feel simple math and division skills would suffice.

[quote author=RandomSteve link=topic=2140.msg14929#msg14929 date=1256521737]
Then you'd have a situation of people hoarding keys and being greedy

Okay, I don't care that much and am mostly avoiding an assignment, but would you really have such a situation?

Is there any proof you can offer for this hypothesis? I can't that see in a situation such as this the general populace will hoard keys for nefarious reasons, especially given the suggestion I made that to protect this feature an existing licence key should be entered, but I can see they may have something to loose (time at the least, more money (however small) in addition).

Besides which, if this is protected by an existing licence key those keys could always expire after a month (with new keys be offered as claimable but not automatically issued) if the keys are limited in number to that extent and a new exe can't be generated quickly with a different hash to get more keys.

[quote author=RandomSteve link=topic=2140.msg14929#msg14929 date=1256521737]
so I actually think this is a bad idea. I feel simple math and division skills would suffice.


The point wasn't that it's hard to do some maths, it's the PayPal charges that 2dboy/PayPal face, as detailed in their blog when they mention small transactions. Another time for the sake of some simply coding (and if PayPal can accommodate it), perhaps.

It was only a thought that for a software offer such as this it makes sense - buy the game, then buy it for friends that wouldn't otherwise buy it, thus giving the developer a bit more money per person, which would hopefully scale well for them while avoiding transaction fees.

R

@Retne: I, for one, when possible, hoard keys. There was this one free promo (Arctic Adventures or something) where I ordered about a couple thousand of the game. It only did come with one key, but I got so many activations that I can barely keep track of the number. The only reason I do this is because of DRM. (Yes, I know I'm bad.)

Moving on to your next comment, it's a very inefficient way of doing things. It just complicates the user experience. You know everyone hates DRM. Having an expiring key just complicates things.

[quote author=GMMan link=topic=2140.msg14964#msg14964 date=1256652758]
@Retne: I, for one, when possible, hoard keys. There was this one free promo (Arctic Adventures or something) where I ordered about a couple thousand of the game. It only did come with one key, but I got so many activations that I can barely keep track of the number. The only reason I do this is because of DRM. (Yes, I know I'm bad.)

Well, that's the thing, isn't it. That's all very nice, congratulations, you have reached level 50 hoarding, but you mention "for one".

I was interested in and commenting on the statement by RandomSteve suggesting he knows what the general behaviour of "people" will be. Is your behaviour typical of most users?

I would suggest that's a bold statement to make (if that's what you're doing, as it appears). I don't know of any research in any respected journals investigating possible links between hoarding of keys and DRM. Some would say the guys were crazy to release the game with no DRM, but they did, it seems to have worked, so the same spirit of endeavour could be tried on a choose-your-own-number-of-licences scheme.

You in fact also mention the circumstances surrounding such hoarding action (DRM in product with activation, free promo). Those circumstances don't apply here, so as far as taking your one case and applying it to a general population, that seems increasingly stretched. Boarding on Freudian, even :)

The lack of free is another barrier to entry for anyone wanting to hoard thousands of keys, perhaps combined with a very easily implemented limit on the number of keys available for any one purchase.

RandomSteve presented no knowledge to back the claim made. You not only don't back up your claim, but undermine it.

I'm just saying.

I'll be honest and admit I've not trawled through journals to provide any supporting evidence here, but as my comment there was directed to the "fact" of what "people" would do, rather than suggesting a general behaviour, I think I'll let myself off.

A hypothesis: Perhaps the type of person who hoards keys does so not to buy copies of a game for friends, which is what my original suggestion is about and aimed at, but as a means to pirate the game or to guard against such issues as limited activation (I'm not suggesting your reason you hoarded those keys is anything but a means of protecting yourself against future strife, although you saying "yes I'm bad" makes one wonder).

The point is both prompts for hoarding (piracy, self protection) are somewhat unnecessary in a game released without DRM (with only a request from the authors as the means of protecting their income). Is your behaviour going to be the same for a game you presumably like a fair amount given you're reading the associated official forum and would hopefully want to support 2d boy? Are you saying everyone acts like this? And all this despite wishes to the contrary that could be made clear from the authors of a game as they asked people not to steal the game?

Also, don't forget I'm suggesting the multiple keys thing would be available to people supplying an existing licence key, that they'd presumably copy from an email.

And you said "got so many activations that I can barely keep track of the number" - I didn't suggest giving an unlimited number of keys to any given purchase. A drop down limiting this to, say, 10 would counter that neatly.

[quote author=GMMan link=topic=2140.msg14964#msg14964 date=1256652758]Moving on to your next comment, it's a very inefficient way of doing things. It just complicates the user experience. You know everyone hates DRM. Having an expiring key just complicates things.


You're correct, I agree this possible solution is inefficient, especially compared to just saying "share ahoy". And yes, I would agree that most people hate DRM (if everyone hated it, I'd imagine we wouldn't have it). That was a suggestion that would enable 2dBoy to limit this issue of licence keys, by time if necessary. Let's not forget the suggestion was aimed at enabling 2dBoy to make more money from this - something PayPal and credit card transactions can collude to block.

As to running out of keys, if that's the danger that's being suggested, I notice there's a 32 character string in the URL supplied for download. If that's a GUID there's a chance the licence key isn't a security hash (no DRM to hash to!), but simply a record or unique identifier to track downloads.

I don't know this for sure, but following that train of though that this may be the case: As there's no DRM, and no real need for a hashable "lk", the likelihood that it could be just a record - for logging purposes, perhaps - is increased, in which case there's whole a GUID's worth of keys to go before they run out of "lk"s. That a whole lot of keys.

In addition to this are very simple counters. The first mentioned above is putting a limit to the number of keys per payment, the second is just adding a prefix then generating another 3.4×10^38 keys,

Don't forget I'm suggesting this for a very specific situation, when someone has already bought a product (well, this product) and wants to give keys to their friends, 'cause they think their friends will enjoy the game and they enjoyed it so much they want to give a bit more to the devs rather than just pirate their own copy of the game. Instead of multiple keys an easier solution could be to have a "here's your copy" and then a "here's a copy you have now bought for your friends", but it would be very easy to generate n keys. L .

Of course, given the lack of DRM the game can just be copied over, but this would encourage more income and is and a nice way for the lads to track sales, usage (what % of people given the game never download it, for example), and, as I say, make more money from people who want to give Goo.

R